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Chapter 3

The Story

The Authors

Poor sad pathetic Shrapnel Mike. To have come to such an end after such a miserable existence. Vashondra shook her head and lowered the newspaper. "I swear, Bitzy! What is this world coming to?" She set aside the front page section and picked up the comics.

cuddles

Vashondra laughed histerically for a few minutes and then abruptly stoped for a moment. Mike, pondering the cause of this histeria stared at Vash. Not seeing any movement Mike started poking at her with a fork. Seeing now, what seemed to be a nervous twitch he was concerned. Getting more and more frantic ever second he runs out of the room yelling and screaming like a newborn. Coming back in an hour with a doctor from the not so nearby hospital, they examined Vash intricatly. Mike, about to saying something was rudely interupted by the doctor,"Point of Clarification!".Mike was baffled as to the origin of this remark.Mike asked,

Zeus

At this, the shrapnel made Mike's legs stop running, while it tried to figure out just what it wasn't doing right, for Mike's neural impulses to be firing so randomly, causing him to suffer bouts of nonsense and glossolalia, and to see people who weren't there. He leaned the body up against a tree, where it panted and listened uncomprehendingly to its own hammering heart. A stray cocker spaniel, drawn to the tree by the rainbow of scents emanating from Mike, lifted its leg and urinated down the leg of his chinos. The body did not even twitch. Inside, somewhere, floating in the warm shallow coastal waters off the Isles of Langerhans, Mike felt nothing, eyes closed, inner sun on his face, and dreamt of a ghostly Puget Sound which vomited geysers of clams up into the sky.
Downstairs from all this, however, the shrapnel was growing irked. He could eavesdrop on Mike's dreams but he didn't know how to stop them. And the more he looked around him, at the night, through Mike's eyes, the more he understood that those dreams were beginning to infect the world. He kicked a pesky swarm of land-clams clustering on the sidewalk in front of him. He watched the fearsome nocturnal tree-clams clambering up the elms and listened to the sound of their teeth munching on succulent elm-leaves and bark. He saw the cars passing on the street and their frames were cut from the shells of giant clams. Even his skin felt clammy.

Philip Welsh

He quickly walked in the nearest building. In it were threee gentlemen waiting. They told him to come quickly. He followed them into a white cold room. In that room there were four tables and one red chair.

Rebecca

Three gentlemen sat in the red chair. They were all cut from the same cloth and of that indeterminate age between 75 and ninety with little intricately patterned and elaborate Van Dykes drawn on their collective chins with what appeared to be magic marker. It made them seem a bit more dignified Mike thought as, still a bit winded, leaned cautiously on the table that stood closest to the door. His legs were rubbery from all the unasccustomed exercise and a distant rumble from deep within his belly reminded him that he hadn't eaten since early that morning. Perhaps one of these gentlemen might get him a nosh, he thought. They certainly resembled waiters after a fashion in their white jackets and dark slacks. The white socks with the dark shoes gave away the illusion however but Mike decided to give them ten minutes anyway.
"Ah Mike at last...said the first gentleman.
"we have the opportunity..." said the second.
"to meet formally" remarked the third gentleman as the trio broke into a wide and disarming grin. "But, of course,..."the first began.
"you are under.." continued #2. "
"...standably confused." the third finished.
1st gent : "Allow us..."
2nd gent : "to introduce..."
3rd gent : "ourselves."
the three in unison : "We are the brother's Gromelsky!"

Lanark

The Brothers Gromelsky! Shrapnel Mike was astonished. He'd heard of the infamous brothers but never dreamed that he'd one day meet them face to face to face to face. He had first heard of the Gromelskys when he was a fighter pilot during the war. He and his fellow pilots would lay in there bunks at night quietly telling stories and rumors about the notorious threesome. One story had them running arms to the enemy. Another story had them stealing arms from the enemy. Still another story had them providing prostitutes to the generals. Yet another story pegged them as alien beings on a mission to abduct as many Nebraskans as they could. The stories and rumors became so contradictory and outlandish, that Shrapnel Mike had come to the conclusion that the three brothers never existed. Boy was he surprised!

cuddles

Outside the building, Officer Pencilthinmoustache sniffed the myriad odors rolling across the damp night-air and nodded to himself with satisfaction. He was closing in on his quarry. Oh, and what would Scotland Yard say could they but see him now, those scurvy coppers! Green with envy they'd be, aye! And sunk to their noses in porter!

Brushing dust from a pane of glass in the window through which his all-pervading olfactory genius had detected the telltale scents of charred oak, rat urine and lilac, he peered in the the three seated figures and the fourth, who stood, pacing and gesticulating in front of the three. Ah-ha, thought Officer Pencilthinmoustache, nodding smartly to himself for the three-hundredth time that evening. Not only do I catch the rat, but I trap his Superiors too!

Philip Welsh

Mike's stomach grumbled ominously. For what seemed to him like the thousandth time he attempted to explain to the Gromelsky Brothers that they must have him mistaken for someone else. He had no idea what they wanted, couldn't help them and had never heard of anything called an Iron Sausage, Tin Sausage, Steel Sausage or a frickin' sausage constructed entirely out of aluminum foil for that matter. #1 : " Methinks the..." #2 : "Lady doth protest..." #3 : "too much." and a concert of snickering was all he received for his trouble. All this sausage talk was getting seriously on his nerves as it conjured up dancing visions of sizzling plates of Jimmy Dean and Sizzlean in his hungry mind. But escape was currently beyond his means. The Gromelsky Brother's reputation for ruthless bloodthirst and an Oriental body guard who was barely smaller around than a forties refrigerator lingering by the exit kept him rooted where he stood. The bodyguard silently sucked his teeth and breathed heavily through two nostrils that you could hide a Buick in. The faint aroma of his sickly sweet lilac cologne hung ominously in the still air. #1: "Come now, Mike..." #2: "this obstinance will..." #3: "get you nowhere." #1: "What have you..." #2: "done with the..." #3: "Iron Sausage?"

Lanark

Shrapnel Mike was just about to deny once again any knowledge of the so called iron sausage when the door flew open and in jumped Officer Pencilthinmoustache with a cry of "What's all this then?" He came to rest a few paces from Shrapnel Mike. "Oy! Ain't you the fellah what kicked me in the 'ead and caused me to start speaking with an english accent?" Mike could only shrug. The oriental body guard, whom Pencilthinmoustache had not see nor smelled, snuck up behind the officer, grabbed him around the neck and held him in a halfnelson. "Enough of this foolishness!" cried the Gromelsky bothers in unison. "Give us the Iron Sausage or Peaches will break both of your necks!"

cuddles

"Sweet Jesus Mary Mother of Joseph" trembled Officer Pencilthinmoustache,"The Iron Sausage! That's what this all about? Oh sweet Jesus! We're doomed!" and with that last burst of sentiment so did Officer Pencilthinmoustache's bladder burst forth into his trousers and add his own stench of urine to that of the rats'and the burnt cork and the sweet lilac perfume of Peaches. The Brothers Gromelsky broke into a wide grin that began with right ear of the first and finished itself towards the left ear of the third. #1 : "Allow us..." #2 : "to introduce...." #3 : "ourselves." they began, but they needn't have bothered. Officer Pencilthinmoustache had already fainted dead away.

Lanark

The room filled with a warm golden light and man sporting a white robe and a beard materialized in the corner of the room. "Did someone call me?" the mysterious man asked. "Jesus Christ! Where did you come from?" The Gromelsky Brothers exclaimed. "From Heaven, shit for brains! Where the hell else would Jesus Christ be coming from! I swear to Buddha, you humans get stupider every millenia." Jesus said, shaking his haloed head. "Well, which one of you assholes summoned me and what do you want? I'm a busy savior and I don't have time to waste on you insects." After a short moment of stunned silence Shrapnel Mike spoke up. "Well, your holiness, it was that guy there." Mike said indicating officer Pencilthinmoustache who was still unconcious. "Only he wasn't really calling you. He was just very shocked to find out that those three brothers over there are looking for the Iron Sausage." Jesus opened his eyes wide. "The Iron Sausage? Sweet Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu! I'm outa here!" Jesus threw up his arms and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

cuddles

All present (and conscious) in the room were about to relax when the son of God -- well, it was really only his head (and what's with the thorns, for fuck's sake, thought Mike; aren't they just a wee bit passé after all this time?) -- suddenly reappeared from the as-yet-undissipated clouds of smoke and incense, opened his mouth to the length of fifty-seven cubits and to the width of forthy-three cubits and to the depth of seven times seven hundred and seventy cubits (wherein they could see, all except the weak-eyed Freres Gromelsky, the frantic, gleaming chrome-and-tile workshops of the dwarves beneath Epcot Center) and winked at them, and bellowed;
And these were words which issued forth from our Lord's mouth, yea, followed by a blast of fire, double-yea, and a stampede of seven-headed ewes, and the Lamb of God repeated again his warning;"Fidgetting, Nose-Picking, and Tormental Rectal Itch -- The tell-tale signs of pin-worms!"
Thus spake the Son of God, and thence vanished he, back into the clouds of smoke and incense;
And his children, the cherubim, yea and verily wert also returned into the swirling cloud of smoke and incense and thence to Heaven, truly with all the pomp and ceremony normally associated with the panicked noise of a swarm of gnats being sucked into a spacious vacuum hose;
A fearsome thunderclap rent the sky above them (even though they were inside), and all material evidence of the manifestion of Jesus Christ Our Lord Son Of God and Grande Poo-Bah of the Water Buffalo Lounge vanished, leaving only the sign of His words branded upon their hearts. For the Word is made flesh; and the flesh is fickle; and the fickle get fucked; and the fucked are wont to awaken in strange places wearing red rubber clown-noses that they can't remove and with sore crusty bums that leave stained evidence of an unidentifiable substance neither solid liquid nor gas in their underpants for weeks afterwards; therefore, at it is writ, the Word is never what it purports to be. In other words -- even the shrapnel felt a chill run down his spine at the combined thought of pinworms and the Iron Sausage. At the base of Mike's spine it tried to curl into a small metal ball but to no avail; all these wasted motions of the shrapnel's did was to cause the body of Mike to jerk and macareña after the shambling fashion of a dyskinetic puppet before die Brüdern Gromelsky, who were not in the least amused.

"I always knew Jesus was a raving lunatic." Peaches said under his breath.

cuddles

Just then there were four knocks at the door. The brothers Gromelsky arose from their chair (crusty bottoms and all) to answer #1 "Who..." #2 "..is.." #3 "..it?"
By this time the door had been opened by Vishnu's first and favorite arm. "Excuse me, but I am being lost. Are you able to tell me how I am going to this place what is called Studio 54? I am knowing that this is a good place to meet women." The other 3 arms conducted a finger-snapping ritual known only to those who have climbed the highest peaks of the Himalayas as the "three snaps way up".

Happy Boy

At the mention of The 3 Snaps Up, the ears of Peaches, those large fleshy lobes, opened to their widest and drew forward like sunflowers toward the sun. As a recovering alcoholic of ten years, Peaches had only recently been indoctrinated into the secret sexual "13th Step" which 12-Steppers of the Inner Sanctum guard more zealously than Freemasonry does its responsibility for the major political assasinations of this century and the last. Even among that elite AA company, however, the Three Snaps Up were mentioned, if at all, in the most mumbled and fearful of tones.

On the floor, Officer Pencilthinmoustache stirred. His nostrils quivered above the moustache he'd cultivated since his days singing tenor with the HR Pufnstuf Barbershop Quartet. He smelled smoething. He knew that smell. But what in Her Majesty Queen Victoria's name was it?

Philip Welsh

A skanky slut out on the street corner waiting to do him.

steph

He went over to her and asked if she wanted to to go somewhere with him. So they got into the car and drove to the Holiday Inn on Floral St. After talking a bit Steve placed his hand gently beneath Sarah's skirt and felt around.

sophy

Until there was a loud clang and scream of agony. Sarah smiled victoriously as Steve tried to remove his hand from the bear trap in Sarah's panties. "Now look what you've done," Sarah mocked. "You've got blood all over my new skirt." Steve's eyes were wide with fear and surprise (and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope). "Let me go you bitch!" he wailed. "Uh oh," Sarah wagged her finger at Steve. "You called me a bitch and that means I have to cut your head off." Sarah reached under the bed and pulled out a chain saw. With one fluid motion she started the motor and lopped off poor Steve's head. This was not how Steve imagined his evening would turn out. Meanwhile, Shrapnel Mike was still trying to convince Lord Vishnu that Studio 54 was no longer in business.

cuddles and Happy Boy

"All right," said Janice, "this has gone too far. Sarah, give me that chainsaw."
"Janice!!" screamed Sarah. "You died several stories ago!" "So?" asked Janice. "I thought you guys would figure it out someday - but you haven't! All right!! I'll say it again!!! I AM IMMORTAL!!!!" Sarah passed out because of the overwhelming force of Janice's 143- decibel scream. Then Kristi, Dianne's angel, Vashondra, and Bitzy appeared out of the shadows. It was the immortal Fictional Five! "No matter what you do, no matter how you try, we'll come back to you by and by!" chanted Kristi. She was the prettiest. Shrapnel Mike almost... well, that doesn't matter because Bitzy pulled the shrapnel out of him. Then they left all the characters in this pathetic story where everyone keeps changing the subject to recuperate, and then they went home for breakfast because it was 8:50 A.M. Vashondra had rice krispies. Bitzy had toast with butter. Dianne had toast with cream cheese. Kristi had pancakes, and Janice had granola. Suddenly there was a knock at the door...

Carolyn

It was the one and only Officer Pencilthinmoustache, pencil and pad in hand. He took a deep and triumphant breath and stated in his most stentorious and policeman-like tones a hearty "A-ha!" Having already spent much time in the build up to this very moment Officer Pencilthinmoustache had by then unfortunately forgotten the part that was to have come after the triumphant " A-ha" but ever one to think on his feet, he merely said it again. "A-ha!" There was a pregnant pause that followed. This pregnant pause then proceeded to give birth to a litter of puppies, all spotted black and brown and very very adorable which in turn gave them something to focus on whilst Officer Pencilthinmoustache tried to remember the bit that was supposed to come after the first triumphant "A-ha!"

Lanark

Lydia leaned over and grabbed the remote. "I'm getting kinda bored with these British police dramas" she remarked aloud to no one in particular. There was no one to listen to the remark anyway, she was alone, even the cat had gone outside. She rose to her feet, extinguished the television and padded quietly to the kitchen to make some herbal tea. The infrared sensors changed colour in rotation as she moved through the large suburban home she shared with Max Bialistuck the Minnesota impresario. She wasn't expecting visitors.

Ignacious

But she got visitors. "Hello," said Janice, Kristi, Dianne, Vashondra, and Bitzy. "AAAAAAAAAAA!!!" said Lydia. "We need a roadmap so we can go to the mall," said Kristi. "I want to go to the amusement park," said Bitzy. "Remember what happened last time?" said Janice. "Actually," said Vashondra, "it was kind of fun." Then the Fictional Five got into a big argument over where they should go next, and finally...

Carolyn

they decided to go get a room at the local Motel 6 for some wild and crazy lesbian group sex. Maybe, if they are oh so very lucky, a certain naked dwarf would join them.

Dwarf lover

But then they came to their senses and decided not to. "You know," said Janice who having had the morse code voice box removed now spoke with a voice as clear as crystal. "I still never got to climb Mount Everest." Vashondra rolled her eyes. "Get over it, honey! I won't even climb a flight of stairs in these heels!" she said showing off her 5 inch heeled red patent leather pumps.